The best businesses are always looking for ways to improve their offerings, attract new customers and generate more sales. However, many entrepreneurs feel stuck when it comes to growing their service-based business, sometimes because they are not sure of how to manage the new phase while maintaining their existing success.

But what exactly does it take to successfully grow a service-based business? 

In this post, you will learn 5 effective and actionable tactics that will help you grow your business exponentially and become a leader in your industry.

Service-based Business: How’s it Different from a Product-focused Business?

Scaling a service business, unlike other types of businesses, requires a unique approach, especially in terms of your marketing if you want to generate more qualified leads and sign on more clients.

The fact that you’re selling something intangible means you have to be extraordinarily creative with your marketing in order to create a stronger emotional connection between your clients and what you’re offering.

It is important to note that there is really no one-size-fits-all approach. It all boils down to the type of business you run, who your target audience is, what stage you’re currently in and where you want to go next. 

Nonetheless, there are effective growth strategies that will help you take your service business to the next level and crush your competition..

5 Top Strategies To Grow Your Service-Based Business

1. Prioritize Client Development  

Oftentimes, businesses overestimate the value of their services while paying little or no attention to the actual needs, worries, and concerns of their clients. Sometimes, this happens because businesses assume that they already know who their clients are and what they need. Unfortunately, this is not always true because clients’ needs are always evolving, and their tastes and preferences change over time. You need to be ahead of the curve so you can continue to offer your customers modern and seamless solutions that make their lives and businesses better.

Client development is about serving your clients in the best ways possible . It’s about making a deliberate attempt at identifying the problems or challenges your clients are facing and providing timely and effective solutions. This is how to boost your credibility and build trust with them.

2. Sell The Outcome

As with product-focused companies, a service business can’t grow if its offering is fatally flawed. Your service must be designed to meet the core needs of both your prospects and existing clients.

One of the proven ways to get more clients to choose you over your competition is to sell the outcome that your service delivers. You have to emphasize the value that your service provides and how it’s going to improve their physical, emotional or financial life.

In addition, your marketing message needs to paint a clear picture of how your service   will help your clients move from point A to B in their personal or professional lives. You need to create a compelling message that resonates with their goals and objectives. For example, if you run a marketing firm, you can demonstrate how your services will help your clients generate more qualified leads and customers while reducing their ad spend.

3. Diversify/Offer More Value

If your current service is selling like hotcakes, it might be time to offer something new that offers a unique and exclusive value. If you offer a training course, you can decide to introduce an exclusive high ticket One-on-One coaching session to help your clients stay committed and increase their chances of success. Adding new client-orientated services to your current offering helps you to meet the needs of your clients, increase your sales, and drive revenues.

You can either add more services, launch higher-priced solutions, or offer benefit upgrades or add-ons. Depending on your specific business, you can consider a monthly subscription model, similar to Dollar Shave Club or Netflix.

4. Consider In-bound Marketing  

In-bound marketing forms the foundation of many successful service-based businesses. If you want to grow your brand and become more successful, then you must be ready to invest time and resources on inbound marketing and content creation

In-bound marketing is the process of attracting, engaging, converting and delighting your clients. A person that’s only interacted with your business once is unlikely going to make up their mind to do business with you during that first point of contact. Such an individual has to be nurtured through a series of campaigns and channels to get them down and through the other end of your sales funnel.

A Sales Funnel is a system that walks your client from being a cold or warm-traffic lead, to a happy and loyal client. In-between their first contact with your business and the time when they buy, you have to consistently engage them with valuable content at every stage of their buyer’s journey.

You can nurture your leads in many ways. Depending on your industry, you can publish market insights, white papers, tools, or anything else someone in your  industry might be interested to use or download.  Then you can collect their email address and other important contact information, to reach out to them in other ways. The goal is to continually stay in front of your prospects, present them with free and valuable information to help their business, and ultimately work to convert them into a happy customer. 

5. Use Client Testimonials

Growing a service-based business involves using multiple tactics to attract highly qualified leads and work to nurture them into happy clients, which hopefully results in an ongoing relationship of repeat business. One of the effective ways to attract new clients is to demonstrate how your service currently helps people like them. Genuine customers’ positive reviews or case studies about your business results for other customers will boost the confidence of prospective clients towards your business and the services you’re offering..

You can add customers testimonials, both written and video, to your website or in other marketing materials. Sharing the success stories, case studies and reviews of past and existing clients can help you eliminate your prospective clients’ objections and get them to sign up for your program.

Although no two businesses are the same, and growth strategies may have to be customized to fit your unique business model and hit your desired results, the growth tactics discussed in this post will help you attract more qualified leads and customers to your service-based business without breaking the bank.